When Hombale Films, the production house behind the KGF movies, joined hands with Ashwin Kumar’s Kleem Productions to distribute its first-ever film, Mahavatar Narasimha, they probably didn’t imagine the magic it will create at the box office. The animated film, produced by Kleem Productions and directed by its founder Ashwin, is reportedly made on a budget of Rs 15 crore. The budget was recovered in the first weekend itself, as the film made Rs 16 crore. But then, something unexpected happened. Word-of-mouth took over, and the film witnessed a sharp growth in collections. It made Rs 44.75 crore in its first week. On its second Sunday, the film saw a jump of over 150% compared to its first Sunday and collected Rs 23.1 crore.
Despite the release of films like Dhadak 2 and Son of Sardaar 2, the animated film, inspired by the legend of Narasimha (which shows the fourth avatar of Lord Vishnu) is steady at the box office with a collection of Rs 7.9 crore on Tuesday. Of this total, Rs 5.25 crore came from its Hindi version. Meanwhile, new Hindi releases Dhadak 2 and Son of Sardaar 2 collected as less as Rs 1.75 crore and Rs 2.76 crore , respectively, on the same day.
According to industry tracker Sacnilk, the Ashwin Kumar directorial film sold about 12k tickets every hour due to good word of mouth after opening at Rs 2.15 crore on its first day. Now, the film has over 4000 shows across India with over 2050 3D shows in Hindi and Telugu and over 2000 shows in 2D in both the languages. The number of shows in Kannada and Malayalam is not reported. With the increase in the number of shows across India, the animated film stands at a total collection of Rs 106.05 crore.
The number of shows given to Ajay Devgn and Mrunal Thakur’s film is 2237, and 1383 to Siddhant Chaturvedi’s Dhadak 2. Both films are made on higher budgets and are a part of ongoing franchises. With no big releases scheduled for this weekend, chances are Ashwin Kumar’s film will soon hit the Rs 150 crore mark if it continues its momentum. The movie is expected to spawn a franchise itself.
